Preface
Integrated post-harvest protection is oriented to the guiding principle of sustainable development and to the focal development-policy goals of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), namely poverty reduction, environmental protection and conservation of natural resources and education and training. It makes a direct contribution to food security.
The present brochure illustrates how international and national research institutions, bilateral and multilateral development cooperation projects, and the national agencies concerned, have cooperated intensively in developing new concepts for the post-harvest protection sector, and have thus contributed to successful problem-solving in this field. Thanks to this collaboration and its results, it was possible, for instance, to abate the problem of the accidental introduction to Africa of the Larger Grain Borer, thus preventing enormous post-harvest losses in maize and dried cassava. This has contributed substantially to food security in the affected countries. The list of successful outcomes is lengthy and shows that integrated post-harvest protection is a worthwhile investment that must have a firm place in efforts to promote sustainable agriculture.
Albert Bell
|
Dr. J. de Haas
|
Acknowledgements
The findings presented here have only been possible through the collaboration of numerous experts and co-workers. Many colleagues cooperated in compiling the relevant facts and figures in the period from 1983 to 1998. I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to them all.
I owe a particular debt of gratitude to our partners in the plant protection services of Togo, Benin, Tanzania and Ghana. Their cooperative and constructive approach in carrying out this work has made it possible to gain sound data and to utilize it in practical work.
The propagation of the beneficial insect Teretriosoma nigrescens (Tn) was particularly promoted by the productive cooperation with the IITA Station in Cotonou.
In this connection I thank my colleagues M. Zweigert and Dr. Ch. Borgemeister, who are convinced of the beneficial effect of biological control by Tn and to this end were highly committed to efforts to propagate such beneficial insects.
Albert Bell
For some 20 years, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has been promoting supraregional projects aimed at protecting food from deterioration and decay. These projects have focused on post-harvest protection at the small farm level, and, since the mid 80ies, have particularly centred on projects for the integrated control of the Larger Grain Borer (LGB, Prostephanus truncatus), a storage insect pest accidentally introduced to Africa at the end of the 1970s. In addition, the BMZ has promoted a series of national projects to protect stored products and supported other plant protection or regional development projects with stored product protection components, above all in African countries (for example in Benin, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Tanzania, Togo and Zambia). Backstopping for these projects is provided by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) - German Technical Cooperation. The BMZ also supports international agricultural research projects addressing the integrated control of the LGB at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Cotonou, Benin.
Although economic issues have repeatedly been touched upon in the context of project progress reviews, BMZ evaluations and doctoral theses (e.g. by Pantenius, 1988; Albert, 1992; Henckes, 1992; Schleich-Linz et al., 1993; Mutlu, 1994; Helbig, 1995; Krause & Mück, 1996), the cost-effectiveness of post-harvest protection measures has to this day not been comprehensively verified. The economic benefit of such measures is even occasionally called into doubt.
The present brochure documents the economic-effectiveness of post-harvest loss reduction measures at both the farm level and the macroeconomic level. To this end, it analyses the socio-economic impacts of post-harvest protection upon the target groups and upon the national economies of the countries concerned. The approaches and results of various completed and ongoing studies are compared, and an overview is given of their findings.
The works reported on here centre on determining the losses caused by insects in maize storage and preventing these losses through integrated protection measures. The present analysis does not make an economic assessment of other project activities, such as the prevention of mycotoxin formation, the improvement of storage structures, education and training, environmental protection and resource conservation etc.